Great. For years, one of the major selling points of legalization was "think of all the tax revenue it will generate." And now there's protests about paying taxes on it. OF COURSE it was going to have a hefty tax, it's still illegal technically.

Can we please get the dang plant legalized first, then work on the other stuff later? Baby steps.

I was in Boston several years back, near the dowtown area, saw a large hippyesque crowd aimlessly wandering about. As we strolled that way the wind blew the ganja odor our way. It was the Freedom Rally. The catering trucks were several deep servicing the crowd. An interesting mix of people; from preppies to the hard core Grateful Dead types.

Almost everyone I knew who supported legalization used as one of their arguments "we could tax it, and all that money would go to the government". So, now that it's legal, they're pissed that Colorado is going to tax their weed? Jesus, be grateful you won, and accept that what you claimed was a positive of the legislation has come to pass.

You know, I get why coke, heroin, crack, and meth are illegal.....but why is a plant illegal? I don't do drugs myself, so I've got no dog in the hunt, but it's always puzzled me why something as physically and socially destructive as meth is put in the same group as pot. Methheads will kill....what's a pothead going to kill? A couple Nachos Bel Grande from Taco Bell?

Oh shiat.....I could drive there. I'm actually tempted to do it, but I'm not going to bother with it just for a farking joint.

I don't care if they tax it either.

"Marijuana was supposed to be taxed and regulated like alcohol, not tobacco,"

Go cry some more, biatches. When they increased tobacco taxes you said nothing. The cost of a carton went from $48 to $75 before the taxes even took effect and no, the increase in taxes wasn't enough to justify that price increase.

This is all about dealers and growers who are watching their cash cow slip away. The free market is going to be an evil biatch for them and when I can walk into a store and buy an ounce of Colorado Kush for $90 they are going to be crying like babies because when it was illegal that would have cost me twice that.

WTF Indeed:Legal, taxed pot will always be more expensive than illegal, untaxed pot. Market forces will push people to continue buying from illegal sources.

Which is why more people drink moonshine than legal whiskey, right? When pot is legal, the penalties for selling it untaxed will be harsh, as harsh as untaxed tobacco and liquor. Doing 2 years in federal prison for selling an untaxed legal product will not appeal to most people. Like tobacco their probably will be a "grow for personal use" provision, but again the penalties for selling it will be too harsh for the average person growing their own weed.

devildog123:Almost everyone I knew who supported legalization used as one of their arguments "we could tax it, and all that money would go to the government". So, now that it's legal, they're pissed that Colorado is going to tax their weed? Jesus, be grateful you won, and accept that what you claimed was a positive of the legislation has come to pass.

Smidge204:WTF Indeed: Legal, taxed pot will always be more expensive than illegal, untaxed pot. Market forces will push people to continue buying from illegal sources.

Just like with alcohol.=Smidge=

Try reading the article next time. They want it to be taxed like alcohol.

ftfa - But critics are upset state and local governments want to tax marijuana at a much higher rate than alcohol."Marijuana was supposed to be taxed and regulated like alcohol, not tobacco," a press release from organizers states.

Tom_Slick:WTF Indeed: Legal, taxed pot will always be more expensive than illegal, untaxed pot. Market forces will push people to continue buying from illegal sources.

Which is why more people drink moonshine than legal whiskey, right? When pot is legal, the penalties for selling it untaxed will be harsh, as harsh as untaxed tobacco and liquor. Doing 2 years in federal prison for selling an untaxed legal product will not appeal to most people. Like tobacco their probably will be a "grow for personal use" provision, but again the penalties for selling it will be too harsh for the average person growing their own weed.

And the ones who were against legalization this just laugh and laugh as you all eat yourselves alive.

alice_600:Tom_Slick: WTF Indeed: Legal, taxed pot will always be more expensive than illegal, untaxed pot. Market forces will push people to continue buying from illegal sources.

Which is why more people drink moonshine than legal whiskey, right? When pot is legal, the penalties for selling it untaxed will be harsh, as harsh as untaxed tobacco and liquor. Doing 2 years in federal prison for selling an untaxed legal product will not appeal to most people. Like tobacco their probably will be a "grow for personal use" provision, but again the penalties for selling it will be too harsh for the average person growing their own weed.

And the ones who were against legalization this just laugh and laugh as you all eat yourselves alive.

I don't care if it is legal or not, I don't use it and have no desire to use it; however, since use has stayed pretty constant over the years, there is no reason to continue to waste resources trying to curb usage. So legalize it, tax it like tobacco, and spend that tax money trying to get rid of Meth which is a drug that really needs to go.

Tom_Slick:Which is why more people drink moonshine than legal whiskey, right? When pot is legal, the penalties for selling it untaxed will be harsh, as harsh as untaxed tobacco and liquor. Doing 2 years in federal prison for selling an untaxed legal product will not appeal to most people. Like tobacco their probably will be a "grow for personal use" provision, but again the penalties for selling it will be too harsh for the average person growing their own weed.

The change from majority illegal production and sales to legal production took 160 years, two Constitutional amendments, the rise of organized crime, massive government corruption, and hundreds of billions(trillions if you count the money spent before the civil war) to control the "illegal production and sale of booze.

WTF Indeed:Legal, taxed pot will always be more expensive than illegal, untaxed pot. Market forces will push people to continue buying from illegal sources.

Time will tell, but I actually kind of doubt that. It costs very little to grow. The high prices are set mainly by the availability and illegality. $250 an ounce too much? Sure, go buy it somewhere else. But I don't know anyone else. Okay then, $250 an ounce it is.

And there's the whole convenience aspect. Hmmm....do I take a 15 minute trip to the store to buy some weed or do I call up one of my "friends" and ask if I can visit for a little while and oh by the way can you get me a bag? Yeah - no disrespect intended towards my friends but sometimes I just want a bag and I don't want to hang out.

The taxes aren't going to do anything but push quality. Who the fark wants to buy $80 an ounce ditch weed and pay $20 an ounce taxes on top of that when they could buy $150 an ounce kind bud and only pay $20 an ounce tax on that?

Despite the stereotypes, not all stoners are stupid and there will be cheap weed out there. 2014 will be an interesting year.

The people who argued they could tax the sale, probably expected to just pay sales tax.Clearly they haven't paid attention to how cigarettes and alcohol are taxed.The government is like a malevolent genie. They'll grant your wish (or abide by your vote), but wishing for a million dollars will involve your family dying every time (or tax the shiat out of your vice).

Just let me grow my own for personal use. That's all I ask. Hopefully it'll be legal in Tennessee before I retire in 20 years. We're already considering legal hemp, Kentucky did that a while ago. So it might be possible down here in Jesus land.

Gneisskate:Don't use it myself, but a 30% tax does seem excessive. Does anyone know what comparable taxes are for alcohol and tobacco?

Not sure about what other taxes are, but the Colorado excise tax per pack on cigarettes is 84 cents. There is also a 2.9% state sales tax, plus another 3.62% tax added on in the city of Denver. Not sure if there are any others.

devildog123:Almost everyone I knew who supported legalization used as one of their arguments "we could tax it, and all that money would go to the government". So, now that it's legal, they're pissed that Colorado is going to tax their weed? Jesus, be grateful you won, and accept that what you claimed was a positive of the legislation has come to pass.

Add 30% to the price of your legal beer and see how you feel. Taxation is one thing, excess, puntative taxes that are essentially the Scarlet Letter..."We don't think you should do this but since you voted to make it legal, you can still do it only behind your closed curtains, and you pay a lot more tax and you can't have more than an ounce"...etc.

It's a bunch of freaking balloon juice, but the pants-wetting drunks just cannot seem to get over themselves. Their day will come.

Want to have an amendment, regulate alcohol like Marijuana...

Close all barsno liquor in restaurantsYou can buy 8 ABU's if you are a resident, 2 if you are from out of state and you MUST provide a valid photo ID and have it recorded.Tax all sauce at 30% sales tax, for the Children.Liquor stores open 11AM to 7PM, not on Sat, or Sunday at all.No drinking outside your house, inside where no one can see you...

Holy FARK! Either I am old and in the way, or that is a REALLY high markup.

Yeah, $60 for an 8th is farked up. Who the hell buys 8ths anyway? When I first started buying weed it was $20-25 a quarter. Granted it was Mexiweed, but still.

Today, I could probably get a whole ounce of kind bud for about $250. I dunno - I've only bought weed once in the last few years and I don't remember what I paid, but I do know that $60 for an 8th is a farking ripoff.

"Marijuana was supposed to be taxed and regulated like alcohol, not tobacco,"

Go cry some more, biatches. When they increased tobacco taxes you said nothing. The cost of a carton went from $48 to $75 before the taxes even took effect and no, the increase in taxes wasn't enough to justify that price increase.

The funny thing is they're also going to argue, as folks always have, that pot is less bad for you than alcohol and so it doesn't make sense to tax it this way. Never mind that most people smoke it, which inserts hot ash into the lungs, which is terribly bad like tobacco. Never mind that when we industrialize it, we'll add a ton of chemicals like with tobacco. It'll be just as bad, and people will be mad that we're taxing funny-smelling cigarettes like cigarettes instead of like alcohol.

Don't they realize the taxes are all arbitrary? This high tax is a revenue generating risk control to offset the failed Obamacare costs from increased healthcare problems. Nobody can agree on how much health damage this will cause in general, so they're making conservative risk estimates and thus estimating high and mitigating with high taxes. This may reduce risk beyond actual risk into an excessively high perceived risk, but at least they won't come up short when the public health cost impact hits. It's that line of thinking.

It is also that pot is bad and we are giving a sin tax on this stuff to make bad people pay a tithe for being bad and doing such bad things, so of course it's very palatable. A high tax accomplishes every conceivable goal, as long as it's kept below the market cost of illegal dealings--if we can manufacture this stuff more cheaply on an industrial scale and a 100% tax mark-up still brings a product at a price too low for small illegal dealers to make good business from, then a 100% tax mark-up really still accomplishes our goals as it will push the illegal element out and draw tons of revenue and discourage use (by artificially raising cost, thus raising price) and we can use the revenue to balance the public health impact risk.

I think people who get high have something wrong with them. I don't drink to get drunk; I drink because brandy and good whiskey taste good and I take it nice and slow and relax. Whiskey goes in a sniffer by the way, especially good Irish whiskey with a brisk and spicy aroma--try it, Tullamore Dew for example. But I also feel that the Government is violating the trust of the people by trying to enforce laws that nobody agrees with anymore. Consider Promise Theory:

The theory of promises as applied to organization [6] bears some resemblance to the theory of Institutional Diversity by Elinor Ostrom.[7] Several of the same themes and consideration appear; the main difference is that Ostrom focuses, like many authors, on the role of external rules and obligations. Promise Theory takes the opposite viewpoint that obeyance of rules is a voluntary act and hence it makes sense to focus on those voluntary promises. An attempt to force obeyance without a promise is considered to constitute an attack.

15% of constituency wants to smoke pot. 65% do not care about smoking pot. 20% want it illegal. You have 20% for, 15% against, 65% who have no interest in this being a rule. 80% of your constituency has not stood up to provide a promise that they won't engage in a behavior, and the other 20% have no standing because these other 15% over here aren't bringing harm unto them and so what they're asking for isn't a protection. By forcing this obligation--this law about possessing or using marijuana--onto the people, you are attacking them. That's your government attacking you.

I don't care about smoking pot. I think people who smoke pot are idiots. I don't think it should be illegal. The government making it illegal is creating a terrible criminal element and costing me a ton of tax money trying to enforce this. They're also, basically, trying to force their ideals onto me--it has no direct impact on me, but they are putting an obligation (one that has no effect on me anyway) onto me that I haven't agreed to. That's an attack, and it's not right.

ArkPanda:LasersHurt: ArkPanda: I'm not sure if the anti- or pro-legalization people are more full of shiat. According to the legalizers, it's supposed to instantly end all crime and balance the budget.

"I enjoy making ridiculously oversimplified arguments, pretending other people make them, and then judging them for it."

Hey, everyone needs a hobby. Are you saying there haven't been grandiose promises about the benefits of legalization? Last month there was a thread here promising $400 million in NYC alone.

I think maybe you need to give it some time to see what happens, rather than take the very first place's very first bump in the road as a sign that all advocated are rose-tinted dreamers making wild promises.

I think maybe you should also learn the difference between "estimates about the future" and "hard promises."

bmwericus:devildog123: Almost everyone I knew who supported legalization used as one of their arguments "we could tax it, and all that money would go to the government". So, now that it's legal, they're pissed that Colorado is going to tax their weed? Jesus, be grateful you won, and accept that what you claimed was a positive of the legislation has come to pass.

Add 30% to the price of your legal beer and see how you feel. Taxation is one thing, excess, puntative taxes that are essentially the Scarlet Letter..."We don't think you should do this but since you voted to make it legal, you can still do it only behind your closed curtains, and you pay a lot more tax and you can't have more than an ounce"...etc.

It's a bunch of freaking balloon juice, but the pants-wetting drunks just cannot seem to get over themselves. Their day will come.

Want to have an amendment, regulate alcohol like Marijuana...

Close all barsno liquor in restaurantsYou can buy 8 ABU's if you are a resident, 2 if you are from out of state and you MUST provide a valid photo ID and have it recorded.Tax all sauce at 30% sales tax, for the Children.Liquor stores open 11AM to 7PM, not on Sat, or Sunday at all.No drinking outside your house, inside where no one can see you...

Legalized pot means you don't go to jail just because you possess some, not bargain prices. If that were true then moonshine would have dissappeared decades ago. Legal pot is also certified to be pot, pure & simple. So help a school district and local firestation get appropriate funding, fire up a bowl and get yourself stoned to the bone!

"Marijuana was supposed to be taxed and regulated like alcohol, not tobacco,"

Go cry some more, biatches. When they increased tobacco taxes you said nothing. The cost of a carton went from $48 to $75 before the taxes even took effect and no, the increase in taxes wasn't enough to justify that price increase.

The funny thing is they're also going to argue, as folks always have, that pot is less bad for you than alcohol and so it doesn't make sense to tax it this way. Never mind that most people smoke it, which inserts hot ash into the lungs, which is terribly bad like tobacco. Never mind that when we industrialize it, we'll add a ton of chemicals like with tobacco. It'll be just as bad, and people will be mad that we're taxing funny-smelling cigarettes like cigarettes instead of like alcohol.

Don't they realize the taxes are all arbitrary? This high tax is a revenue generating risk control to offset the failed Obamacare costs from increased healthcare problems. Nobody can agree on how much health damage this will cause in general, so they're making conservative risk estimates and thus estimating high and mitigating with high taxes. This may reduce risk beyond actual risk into an excessively high perceived risk, but at least they won't come up short when the public health cost impact hits. It's that line of thinking.

It is also that pot is bad and we are giving a sin tax on this stuff to make bad people pay a tithe for being bad and doing such bad things, so of course it's very palatable. A high tax accomplishes every conceivable goal, as long as it's kept below the market cost of illegal dealings--if we can manufacture this stuff more cheaply on an industrial scale and a 100% tax mark-up still brings a product at a price too low for small illegal dealers to make good business from, then a 100% tax mark-up really still accomplishes our goals as it will push the illegal element out and draw tons of revenue and disc ...

That's quite a rant. I imagined you were stoned out of your mind when I read it and then when I realized you said you don't like pot, I wondered what you would be like if you ever did get stoned.

You'd probably say something about Venutians and people from all walks of life.

bmwericus:Add 30% to the price of your legal beer and see how you feel. Taxation is one thing, excess, puntative taxes that are essentially the Scarlet Letter..."We don't think you should do this but since you voted to make it legal, you can still do it only behind your closed curtains, and you pay a lot more tax and you can't have more than an ounce"...etc.

The price is per alcohol, so beer is taxed the same as moonshiate. Beer happens to be like 5% ABV, so 1gal beer has 5% of the tax on it as 1gal corn juice at 100% ABV. People like to make up all these complex schedules and all, but it's really quite simple; and when the law does show a complex schedule, it's usually to avoid making the manufacturers do math and avoid trying to write good faith into the law (because your ABV will fluctuate) and just "it's approximately this, so it's X for beer and Y for wine" because close enough.